Alchemist,
I suggest you be more punctilious and learn to read punctuation. There is a difference between "?" and "!", then you will not confuse a question as being a statement.

You have not told us if you live in Victoria, as I thought I might test the verasity of your true feelings before the VIC vilification tribunal. Do your words excite hatred that someone could interpret as reason to commit acts of violence toward a religious person? You see the violence does not have to be done by you but by someone whom you influence. Obviously your whole life has been brainwashed, controlled and influenced by your Daddy. When will the true Alchemist come out of the dark?

"you cannot believe anything a Muslims (sic.) says"

Perhaps it is because some people make hateful comments like these that the vilification laws were enacted? One is not too surprised when people who make statements like this jump up and down when it appears they might be called to account for them.

Bill Meuhlenberg says this is an example of secular gov'ts getting in the way of freedom of religious expression. The reality is that pressure groups from various religions, each having a political agenda and ambition of their own, all lobby gov't to obtain privileges for their particular group and with a view to imposing their religious beliefs and views on everybody else through gov't legislation.

Secular gov't should give no special value to Imams or Clergy, they should not be afforded special access to the ear of those in an elected gov't.

Secular gov't gives the best possible chance for equality of religious expression as well as for those whose naturalistic world view does not include the supernatural or mystical.

Until religious groups are willing to eschew state funding for their exclusive faith schools and show willing to integrate into society by attending schools providing reason-based education instead of faith-biased indoctrination, and until religious folk attend to their own private morality at home and in their places of worship instead of inapropriately attempting to impose their religious morality on all of us through gov't lobbying, it seems a bit rich to expect gov't to have no input into religious matters. We all benefit by keeping Gov't and religion totally separate... but it works both ways.

Kactuz >>I have individually challenged Waleed Aly, Irfan Yusuf , Bashir Goth, Xena, Unconquered, Rancitas, Rossco, Shoshana, Trinity and Fellow Human here at OLO (FH at least said the Hadiths were wrong - but don't say that at your local mosque!).<<

I am not a muslim. I have only spoken out because I loath seeing people condemned because of the actions of a few nutbags.

Even if I was a muslim I could not speak of behalf of them all anymore than I could speak on behalf of all women because I am a woman. Muslims are a large and diverse group - they are not a homogenous blob. Besides it appears you are trying to get muslims to condemn a man they regard as a prophet - this is the same as asking christians to condemn Jesus.

I would also posit that not all others you have mentioned above are muslims either - you seem to think that anyone who asks for tolerance and a reasoned approach to debate - instead of a constant stream of criticism - are muslim. How ironic.

I don't like religion at all. I am glad that I'm not muslim and I rejected christianity years ago. I loath the restrictions that ALL religions place on women. I also loath intolerance.

I respect anyone's right to believe whatever they choose as long as they leave me free to my beliefs.

LIVE AND LET LIVE.

Philo, Your first paragraph is typically senseless.

I accept the depths that the religious stoop to, in their futile efforts to support their unsupportable delusions, by demeaning families they have no knowledge off. However unlike you I am quite happy to answer your questions. I don't live in Victoria or Australia, my work takes me else where. I only get back once a year, if lucky.

Vilification laws are there for the inadequate to try and silence, by whatever means, the factual truth. This method has been used by religion throughout the ages to suppress truth, but has never been successful, just killed and jailed lots of good intelligent people.

Your statement, “Do your words excite hatred that someone could interpret as reason to commit acts of violence toward a religious person?”

Only if they were religious, those that have intelligence would have a good laugh at how you all fluster, babble and squirm when confronted by fact. In this century, except for the religious, most people understand the demonics of ideology, that is why ideologies are collapsing.

As to your insults regarding my late father. True he was a devout christian, until he returned from WW2 as a POW in Asia. He never entered a church or spoke of religion again. I never got the opportunity to discuss any of this with my father, as he was ostracised by his church and family, dying from his injuries. A typically religious approach

I doubt Philo that you have any understanding of what violent conflict does to a persons perceived realities. Like other religious (blanks), you refuse to see the realties that make up this world, just concentrating on your own selfcentred delusions.

Philo, study religious and theological history, rather than quote and rely on writings that have been so plagiarised and distorted, that their original meanings, as letters is lost in stupidity. But that would mean accepting the real truth, wouldn't it.

Alchemist,
If you had been aware and following my established position on vilification, you would know I uphold and defend your right to speak as you feel is right. I was joshing you. Obviously your sarcasm is too inbred so I must be more sensitive so you can realise reality.

I know you don't like scriptual quotes but I should follow these principles:

"In [our life and attitudes] commending ourselves as servants of God, by much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the Word of Truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonour, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful
yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things." II Corinthians 6:3-10

The People who were constantly persecuting Paul were religious zealots, who were formerly his tutors and coleagues in Judaism. They felt he was betraying his faith by preaching Jesus was Christ. They wanted him dead, as they had authorised him to so do before his conversion. But it was his perseverence in the face of death that won him a crown of life